


prime numbers

by gracieminabox



Series: horizons universe [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9247061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracieminabox/pseuds/gracieminabox
Summary: "Some people are prime numbers, son."Christopher Pike doesn't know how to compartmentalize.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note: The final vignette of this fic ties directly into "driving with the brakes on," also by me on AO3. While I'd be delighted if you headed over and read that fic, it's not crucial to understanding the story as a whole or that vignette in particular.

He comes into the world just after five o’clock on the coldest January morning the Mojave desert has seen in more than a hundred years, born to parents much too young and stupid to qualify to care for a goldfish, much less a human child. But they think they are in love, and so they mix their DNA up to prove it, and he is the living, breathing result.

He comes out feet first and face up, the polar opposite to how he was “supposed” to come out. When he’s told this later, he rolls his eyes, because doing things the way one is “supposed” to is both boring and ineffectual. On that same note, he does not cry when he is born, probably _because_ babies are “supposed” to cry. But not him.

No, Christopher Vincent Pike comes into the world not with a lusty wail but with a heaving sigh.

~

He is three when he begins to realize his mama is not like other mamas. Sometimes Mama sleeps - a _lot_. It seems like Daddy’s always trying to make Chris take a nap, but Mama sometimes seems like she’s _always_ napping. It doesn’t really bother him, because when Mama’s sleeping all day, Daddy’s in charge of dinner, and he makes really good mac and cheese. It does confuse him a little, though, especially when he sees the mamas at daycare coming to pick up their children and not looking nearly so sleepy.

But other times, though, Mama _never_ sleeps. It’s like she has too much energy. Her hands move faster than Chris can see them and her eyes get really big and she talks way too fast. Chris can't understand her when she's like that, and he worries about making her mad or getting in her way. Sometimes she snaps at Chris when she’s in these moods, and he _really_ doesn’t like that. He tries not to let it make him cry, but sometimes he can't help it.

One night after Daddy puts Chris to bed, Chris wakes up and finds Mama taking every single toy out of his toy box and frantically putting them back in in a specific order. She’s crying. He doesn’t know why.

~

He is five when Mama goes away. Daddy explains that she’s gotten really sick, and we don’t know why, but she needs doctors to take care of her all the time now, and they can't do it with Mama at home. Chris asks if they can visit her where she is, but Daddy doesn’t think it’s a good idea right now.

Chris feels like he should cry, but doesn’t. He never sees Mama again.

He and Daddy start spending a lot more time with Grandma and Grandpa Pike. Grandma is a little bit stern and intimidating, but Grandpa Pike is the warmest, dearest man Chris could ever imagine. One particularly clear night, he takes Chris up to the roof of their house and starts pointing out the constellations, telling him what planets are closest to which stars and what species are from those planets and asking Chris if he’s met anyone from those species yet, if he has any Vulcans or Tellerites or Andorians in his kindergarten class. Chris reaches a tiny child’s hand up to the cold, glittering sky, and Grandpa smiles fondly and asks him if he’d like to sail the stars one day. Chris begins to glow, falling slowly and irretrievably in love with the black.

~

He is eleven when Dad introduces him to Kerrie. She’s nice, he guesses, and Dad seems to be grossly gaga for her, but…did he miss the part where his parents got divorced and Dad’s allowed to date someone?

He talks to Grandpa over a game of chess, and apparently, yes, he did miss that part. A couple of years ago, in fact. Well, all right then.

Kerrie tries, she really does, but Chris is eleven, which is a weird age for any kid in any situation, but weirder still for a kid whose dad’s new girlfriend wants to make nice with him. He spends a lot of time that year in his room reading, or on the roof, either with Grandpa or by himself. He doesn't mean to be rude; he just feels awkward and shy and a little aggravated with Kerrie in a way he doesn't with Ray Bradbury or Jules Verne or the endless star-spangled night or his imagination.

Dad and Kerrie elope that autumn. It doesn’t last through the new year. No one seems surprised.

~

He is thirteen when Grandpa dies.

It’s a heart attack, of all things. It’s the twenty-third century; modern medicine is a brilliant thing. They can cure everything from the common cold to the deadliest cancer without skipping a beat; herpes and ebola have been long since eradicated; yet the tiniest clot in the tiniest artery shuts off blood flow to the heart and, suddenly, Chris is left without his mentor, his closest confidante, the one and only person in his life that he _knew_ cared about him at all times, not only when it was convenient.

Dad’s standing behind Chris at the funeral, as the man up front makes some speech about heaven and hell and eternal souls that would have Grandpa’s eyes rolling so far back in his head he’d have been able to see his brain. Chris feels Dad’s hand on his shoulder and suddenly _can’t_ with this anymore, so he turns and walks away from the gravesite, finding a nearby tree under which he can retch in peace.

For the next six nights, Chris sleeps on the roof, under the stars, until Dad pleads with him to come inside.

~

He is seventeen when he enlists. He’s a few months shy of the legal minimum, but fuck it; people younger than him have entered the Academy. Not many of them, but still. His aptitude tests look great, and he's _beyond_ motivated to get the hell out of here. What more could the 'Fleet ask for?

Chris, in all his adolescent self-importance, thinks he’s pulling some kind of a covert operation. He sneaks into the living room in the middle of the night and nicks Dad’s ID from his wallet. He scans the signature onto the Academy application; it’s not his finest work, but it’s passable. The night he leaves, he slings a duffel over his shoulder with a few changes of clothes, a shaving kit, a handful of PADDs, and the collapsible telescope Grandpa got him when he turned nine. He scribbles out a note - “I’ll comm you when I get to San Francisco. - cvp”

It’s two in the morning and he doesn’t plan on saying goodbye. The first shuttle doesn’t leave for a few hours still, but he’ll catch a quick nap at the shuttleport. He leaves the note where Dad and Grandma are bound to find it and strides confidently out the door.

Dad, naturally, is waiting for him. _Of fucking course._

He’s smoking. Most of the planet gave up smoking decades ago, if not more, but Dad always was a rebel that way. They stare at one another.

“That shit’ll kill you, you know,” Chris says softly.

Dad looks utterly unruffled and shrugs. “We’ve all gotta go somehow.”

Chris can’t exactly argue the point, so he adjusts his shoulder bag. “I’m going out.” Dad nods wordlessly. “I’ll comm you,” Chris continues. Dad nods again, taking a long drag off his cigarette. Chris nods at his father, then turns to walk away.

“Son,” Dad calls to him, and Chris turns. “Have a good life.”

Chris nods. He feels numb, but under that, he feels some other, undefined sensation. He thinks it might be freedom.

~

He is nineteen when he falls in love for the first time. Samantha’s a science division second-year, specializing in the astrophysics of gas giants. She passes every item on his list with flying colors: she’s smart, witty, kind, and unbelievably attractive. Defying all expectations, she finds Chris cool, sexy, sensitive, brilliant, and honestly, perfect, in an unreasonable kind of way.

It’s wonderful, having someone think he hung the moon. Of course, he worries that it’s all a house of cards and that one day it’ll all come crashing down around him, but doesn’t everybody have that fear? (He has no idea, because he’s never been in love before, nor even seen it, not really; but surely everybody in love is fucking terrified, right?)

When he comes back from his _hellish_ week in the Arctic - a practical for Intermediate Survival Skills (“intermediate” _my ass_ ) - Samantha sits him down and tearfully confesses that, in a moment of weakness, she slept with some punk-ass upperclassman while he was away. Chris falls to his knees and begs her for a reason; she admits that she knew she’d never be good enough for Chris, but she knows she’s good enough for Hunter motherfucking Dykstra. Knows she’s _better_ than him, even. Because in her mind, everything is evidently a contest.

That night, Phil Boyce gets Chris really, really drunk, and Chris realizes how nice it is to have a friend who’ll just keep the vodka coming on days like that.

~

He is twenty-three when the Kelvin is attacked. It happens in the middle of the night; in the graduate dorms, nobody’s awake, and it’s comparatively peaceful until someone in a neighboring apartment starts banging on doors and telling people to turn on their terminals. Chris watches the footage with an icy feeling in his gut, a sense that, whatever Starfleet was when he enlisted six years ago, it’s changed radically now.

He hears about George Kirk, about his wife and the baby boy born just a few hours ago who’ll never know his father. Chris thinks back, and he’s pretty sure Winona TA’ed an Advanced Warp Mechanics course he took in his final year of undergrad. She was pretty nice; he remembers blonde hair in a low bun, straight teeth, and a patient affect. He wonders if he should reach out to her in some way, offer his condolences, but stops himself. He only knew her as a lowly student, after all, and that poor woman has enough to deal with right now.

~

He is twenty-nine when he gets married. Chris would’ve been perfectly happy to just file the paperwork and be done with it, but for reasons passing Chris' understanding, it was really, really important to Siobhan to go all out. So here he stands, in his dress whites, Siobhan gliding down the aisle on the arm of her stepfather. It's the height of springtime; Phil slips him an antihistamine hypo a few minutes before the ceremony, but Chris’ eyes water anyway. Siobhan thinks it's emotion. It's obviously pollen.

They say their “I dos,” kiss, dance, and have cake. Chris just really wants to get the hell out of there, and not for the typical reason the groom wants to leave his own wedding. Well…okay, that too, but primarily because he just doesn’t relish being in such a large crowd, all eyes on him and Siobhan. He feels a sudden ache to be back up in the black, away from all of this, to think only about tactical scenarios and tell his captain what he thought of a given plan and to be known only as wry and fair and aggressively competent. Which he doesn’t think is how he’s supposed to feel at his own wedding, which is concerning.

Unsurprisingly, he and Siobhan don’t make it through Christmas. It ends not with a bang but with a whimper. The divorce is, if not amicable, at least quiet. She goes back to Ireland, and Phil doesn’t even have to get Chris drunk. He can do it all by himself now.

~

He is thirty-one when he wakes up, more hungover than he has ever been in his life, in bed with Laura, of all fucking people.

He shrieks - it’s _very_ manly - and jumps out of bed, damn the consequences on his splitting headache. Laura just buries her head in her hands, thinking only after the fact to grab the duvet and cover her chest.

“ _Fuck_ , we didn’t, please tell me we didn’t,” Chris begged.

“Oh, no, we _definitely_ did,” Laura groaned. “A couple times, in fact. You kept screaming my goddamn _name_ , Chris. This entire deck heard you. God, I’m pretty sure the fucking _Klingons_ heard you. Why’d you do that, huh?”

“ _How am I supposed to know?!_ You were doing that...thing...with your...oh Christ, do you have a hypo? I’m dying over here.”

From there on out, Chris would turn fifteen independent shades of pink and quietly excuse himself from the room if anybody called her “Laura.” By mutual agreement, Chris would never, ever, _ever_ refer to Laura by her given name _ever_ again.

And that’s how Laura became Number One.

~

He is thirty-seven when he meets Gen. She’s yelling at Captain Russell, something about _the goddamn lackeys in maintenance fucking up my engines so I can’t get the starboard nacelle to fire worth a damn._

It’s Chris’ first day as XO of the USS Fontana, and already he’s entertained.

Russell makes introductions. Lieutenant Commander Genevieve Lopez is a head shorter than Chris, with dark hair in a pixie cut and cinnamon-brown eyes, and Chris thinks he might be a little bit in love with her from just shaking her hand.

They start seeing each other on the sly three months into their tour. It’s very casual, no strings attached, and the worst kept secret on the ship. Everybody and their dog knows the XO is sleeping with the chief conn officer, and exactly no one is going to breathe a word about it.

Seven months into their mission, Gen tells him she’s pregnant. He promptly passes out, because he does _not_ want to be a father, and _really,_ he knows _exactly_ how he himself mistakenly came into this world; you’d think he’d be more careful about precautions. 

They tell no one. As CMO, Phil obviously knows, but his lips are sealed. They make excuses for the bags under their eyes that stay for days while they lose sleep at night, figuring out what they want to do.

Gen miscarries six days later, and she and Chris breathe a mutual sigh of relief as they agree that their arrangement, fun as it was, is probably playing with more fire than it’s worth.

~ 

He is forty-one when his second marriage silently crumbles.

All things considered, Chris is pretty happy on Earth. Honest, he is. He misses being up in the black like hell, true, but life dirtside isn’t too bad, mostly because of Becca. They’d eloped two years ago and moved into a nice, comfortable house in Sacramento - a hop away from San Francisco by transporter, but still far enough from all things ‘Fleet to keep Chris’ personal and professional lives at least somewhat separate.

(He still sometimes hears Bec call herself a Starfleet widow to her friends, and she only sounds like she’s half-joking. He brushes it off.)

When Archer calls him in and shows him the blueprints for the Enterprise, Chris can barely contain his drool. This ship is a fucking _dream_ and he _wants_ it, he wants it _badly_ , he can _taste_ it. Archer smiles at him through ancient eyes; he’s getting up there in years, and Chris knows Marcus is next in line when Archer finally passes on. Marcus loves Chris, and has Archer’s ear. Something tight like anticipation is building in Chris' throat as he looks at the elderly admiral.

“We’re giving her to you, son,” Archer says gently. “Still a few years off, but when she’s ready, you’ll be in the chair.”

Chris practically dances home, scooping Bec up into his arms and kissing the breath out of her, before telling her everything: that he gets to go up captaining the newest, sleekest, badassest ship in the entire fleet, that he gets to take her out for _years,_ making cracks in every little unexplored corner of the galaxy and peeking inside.

Bec smiles indulgently. “I’m happy for you, honey.”

It takes three days. He walks into his office at HQ, turns on his terminal, and sees the message. “Petition for divorce.”

Phil takes Chris to Mexico. There’s not enough alcohol in the entire goddamn country for this one.

~

He is forty-three when he realizes he kind of wants to kiss Phil.

Maybe. A little bit.

Too much.

He’s known Phil for more than twenty years. They’ve drowned sorrows together, served as CO and CMO together, patched one another up after an away mission gone south (Phil), and bailed one another out of jail (Chris). They’re closer than brothers, Chris and Phil, and better friends than most people get in a lifetime.

So when Chris kind of wants to kiss Phil maybe a little bit too much, he feels a brief, but awfully full-bodied wish for death. Because death would be highly preferable to the electrical storm of _what the fuck_ that that mental image just set off in his mind.

Phil calls Chris on his staring and asks if he’s feeling okay. Chris shakes himself and goes to the kitchen, ostensibly to get more beer, despite the fact that he has a full one in his hand. He splashes some water from the tap on his face, smacking the skin a little harder than necessary, silently begging himself to get his shit together.

Later that night, after Phil falls asleep on the couch, Chris takes a tricorder and scans himself. Surely he must be running a fever.

He’s not.

~

He is forty-seven when he finds himself in his officer’s quarters on Academy grounds, listening to Jim Kirk babble in increasingly panicked terms about his sex life and his desire to not fuck up his current relationship and how very pissed he is at being awakened this morning by a blowjob, and Chris is starting to question his life choices. Because as much as he’s come to care for this kid, _what the hell has his life become?_ And since _when_ the _actual hell_ is _Christopher Vincent Pike_ considered the Federation’s leading expert on _how to make a relationship work?_

Chris _certainly_ doesn’t know how to do it. He doesn’t know how to be a partner _and_ a Captain, how to be a husband _and_ a ‘Fleet officer. His history speaks for itself. Thank Christ he never became a real father, no matter how blurry the lines get between him and the doe-eyed toehead sitting across from him.

“Some people are prime numbers, son,” Chris says matter-of-factly. "Not good at compartmentalizing enough to give of themselves. I'm one of them." And as Chris says it, he watches the words as they hit Jim’s ear, the subtle shift in the light in his eyes, and Chris _immediately_ knows who they’re talking about so pseudo-covertly, and something warm and giddy coils in his chest at the way Jim’s eyes brighten, and all he can think is _thank the fucking stars_ , because no two human beings in the history of the species have ever needed each other more than Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy. ( _And_ it’s happened before they leave the Academy, which means Phil owes him a beer.)

And okay, maybe Chris’ warm and giddy reaction to knowing who Jim Kirk is so stupid in love with might mean Chris thinks of the boy in a _vaguely_ son-like way, but if asked under oath, he’d deny every word of that sentence.

Before Jim leaves, Chris reminds him of the definition of a prime number, that they’re only divisible by themselves, _or_ by one. “So be his one, and _don’t fuck it up_ ,” he intones.

After Jim leaves, he thinks about that statement. Was that hypocritical of him to say? If he and McCoy are both prime numbers, does that mean he, Chris, is divisible by one, too? Is he capable of the same thing McCoy is...the same thing he's got with Jim?

Or is Chris the one, neither prime nor composite, just… _there_ , in the general sense of human relationships?

Then he decides this is getting way too heavy for 0930 on a Sunday and comms Phil, telling him to meet him for a beer at O’Reilly’s tonight. “This one’s on you, if you follow.”

Chris leans back into the sofa, shuts his eyes, and sips his coffee. As he does, twos, threes, fives, sevens, and elevens dance behind his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: While Chris Pike doesn't have a canon middle name, apocrypha list it as Richard (per Memory Beta). Since this is not technically canon, and since the name Richard brings up intensely ungood memories for me, I substituted it with Vincent, my late father's name.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. I look forward to your feedback.


End file.
